In today's network, applications and services are a part of the network operator's domain and are built using intelligent network technology. This approach is excellent for simple mass-market applications, but with the emergence of mobility and the internet protocol, rapid deployment of innovative applications that combine different features and critical enterprise data becomes a challenge.
A number of industrial forums and standardization bodies, such as Parlay and 3GPP, have addressed this challenge and specified APIs (application program interfaces) that serve as an interface between the applications and core networks. The term Open Service Architecture refers to the set of APIs developed by Parlay, 3GPP and ETSI. Within the open service architecture, a basic mechanism exists to which an application within the OSA can subscribe to be notified when a new service capability feature (SCF) becomes available. However, this mechanism provides no indication as to what extent the new SCF is backward compatible with existing SCFs the application is presently using. Thus, there exists a need within the open service architecture for a mechanism for informing an application of the compatibility of new SCFs with existing SCFs.